The role of the Nile in initiating a massive dust influx to the Negev late in the middle Pleistocene.

The article discusses the Nile's initiation of a dust influx to the Negev Desert in Israel in the late middle Pleistocene. The absence of earlier Negev loess is reportedly due to the Sinai-Negev erg dune formation and its eastward movement by wind in northern Sinai. The article states that the Nile Delta could have been the sand source throughout the Quaternary, although it was under Mediterranean waters most of the time, and only exposed from marine oxygen isotope stage 7 to early stage 6.